When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone

by Gal Beckerman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; $30)

Soviet Jews, more or less forbidden to cultivate their cultural identity, were nonetheless punished for it, facing both casual and systematic discrimination. Most were denied exit visas, even if family members had made it to America or Israel. Beckerman, in this wide-ranging and often moving history, shows how Soviet Jews banded together in underground support groups, risking years in prison or labor camps, and how U.S. activists spread awareness of their plight until it became one of the central political issues of the Cold War. The book traces dozens of intersecting story lines, and shows how, after decades of mixed success, the movement played a critical role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Beckerman suggests that it belongs among the great civil-rights success stories of the twentieth century. ♦